Best Org Chart Software

Grace Savides
GS
Researched and written by Grace Savides

Org chart software allows users to create organizational charts of all employees within a company. These tools are designed to facilitate improved internal communications within an organization by offering awareness of current employees. Org charts also help define individual roles in the company and cross-team connections. These solutions often work in tandem with workforce management software, which HR teams use to plan, manage, and track employee work.

The best org chart software offers a variety of ways to create and design the chart itself. Many tools come with prebuilt templates and designs to help speed up the creation process. These solutions also enable users to upload employee rosters to create an employee directory with full-text search capabilities, with options to upload individual names on an as-needed basis or import a list in bulk from spreadsheets software. These tools should allow users to indicate specific roles, departments, and more, as well as enable the publication and updating of organizational charts as a business grows.

Org chart software should not be confused with diagramming software, as diagramming tools can be used to create a number of different charts; org chart solutions are solely intended to create organizational charts.

To qualify for inclusion in the Org Chart category, a product must:

Include the specific functionality to create business organizational charts
Allow users to upload employee roster lists
Offer custom org chart design options
Enable users to publish and update org charts as needed
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Featured Org Chart Software At A Glance

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Learn More About Org Chart Software

What is Org Chart Software?

Organizational charts are diagrams of the structure of an organization or business that delineate employee roles, departments, and hierarchy among the organization’s members. Org chart software allows users to generate and update organizational charts digitally as opposed to creating them by hand. Standalone org chart software is readily available, but most are built into larger diagramming tools or HR platforms.

Key Benefits of Org Chart Software

  • Visual clarity for organization structure
  • Easy to use
  • Specific to organizational charts as opposed to a generalized diagramming tool

Why Use Org Chart Software?

Organizational charts can bring unprecedented clarity to a business’s structure, and org chart software simplifies the process of creating and maintaining them.

Visibility — Conveying complex structural information isn’t easy, especially when it needs to be digestible for an entire business. Organizational charts are the most succinct method to explain how a business is structured.

Ease of use — Org chart tools are straightforward and easy to understand. Generating an org chart can be as simple as uploading a roster list or drawing one in an application.

Who Uses Org Chart Software?

Org charts themselves are helpful for any business of all sizes and industries. Employees at any level or in any department can benefit from the visual clarity org charts offer. While org charts themselves are useful across organizations, typically org chart software itself is in the hands of human resources (HR) departments. Since HR teams handle workforce roster lists across a business, org chart generation features are sometimes built into broader HR tools.

Kinds of Org Chart software

Organizational charts seem simple, but there are multiple types available to suit different types of businesses, departments, and use cases. Org chart solutions will often provide pre-built templates for all the types of organizational structures outlined below.

Hierarchical — Hierarchical org charts are organized by tiers of authority; those at the bottom of the chart answer to those immediately above them, culminating with a single leader who oversees the organization. This is the most common type of organizational chart.

Matrix — Matrix org charts are used when individuals within an organization have multiple managers and/or have cross-functional roles. Organizations that don’t silo or separate their workforce by departments benefit most from matrix org charts because they are less concerned with hierarchy and focus more on the skills necessary for specific projects.

Flat — Flat org charts, sometimes called horizontal org charts, are similar to hierarchical org charts, but are best suited for organizations with little middle management and small companies. While flat org charts are organized by relative role and authority, there is more room for overlap between roles and skill sets. As businesses grow, they will often transition to hierarchical org charts to draw clear lines between roles and departments.

Org Chart Software Features

The basic features of org chart software are ubiquitous across all products, whether they be standalone or built into broader offerings. Some org chart solutions do provide more complex functionality should buyers want features like automation or generalized employee directories.

Templates — Pre-made and/or customizable org chart templates. Having different templates available can be helpful if you anticipate making multiple types of organization charts.

Roster upload — Allows users to upload a roster of employees to automatically generate an organizational chart.

Publishing tools — Allows users to publish or store org charts in different content management systems or other software solutions.

Additional Org Chart Features

Automation — Allows users to connect with external roster lists, allowing for automatic updates to already published org charts.

Workforce planning — Users can create tentative roster lists privately or create succession charts for workforce planning. This feature is popular in dedicated org chart solutions intended for HR professionals.

Staff directory — Provides a separate employee directory where staff can be viewed in a simple list form. Some staff directories are interactive, and clicking on employee portraits presents more information.

Potential Issues With Org Chart Software

Requires constant updates — The most noticeable problem with org charts is that they can quickly become out-of-date. Unless the software solution provides automatic updates, as a company changes, an org chart can quickly become inaccurate. For large businesses with multiple large departments that are always shifting, organizational charts that aren’t updated frequently can be completely useless. Businesses that want to use org chart software will either need to find an offering that provides automatic updates or will need to ensure information is manually updated as workforce changes are made.

Variation in clarity — Org charts aren’t always effectively implemented. As mentioned previously, there are multiple types of organizational charts, and each excels at presenting different kinds of organizational information. If created haphazardly or without context, a poorly-made org chart will only cause more confusion for those with questions.

Similarly, businesses may need to leverage multiple org charts of different types to adequately cover all the relationships that exist in their organization. Just one organizational chart may not be enough to provide enough clarity. If a business wants to implement org charts, the undertaking may take more time than they anticipate if they want to do it well. Businesses should be prepared to spend a sufficient amount of time and manpower creating and maintaining org charts if they choose to have them at all.